An unofficial, eclectic, mostly tangential, view of aspiring devotee life.
Best viewed with Sense of Humor 8.0 or higher.
Cows may come, cows may go, but the bull is always here.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Why Is This Picture So Unique?

There is something really unique about this photo. Don’t give up; really look at it for a while. It is a major feature of the picture, not some minor detail. You should be able to click on the image to make it larger. If you do feel the need to give up, or to validate your observation, click through to the second page of the post.

Continued

"Here the material world is described as a tree whose roots are upwards and branches are below. We have experience of a tree whose roots are upward: if one stands on the bank of a river or any reservoir of water, he can see that the trees reflected in the water are upside down. The branches go downward and the roots upward. Similarly, this material world is a reflection of the spiritual world. The material world is but a shadow of reality. In the shadow there is no reality or substantiality, but from the shadow we can understand that there are substance and reality. In the desert there is no water, but the mirage suggests that there is such a thing as water..."

From the "Introduction" to the Bhagavad-Gita

If you still haven’t figured it out, use the above quote as a key to understanding the uniqueness. Stop reading now and give it another shot.

Okay, I am now going to babble on a bit in order in camouflage the answer within this paragraph so if someone has a weak moment, they won’t see the insight unless they really want to. This is another in the running series of illusions that are sprinkled throughout the archives of my blog. The thing with the picture is that the black figures are shadows of the actual camels. It is taken directly overhead with the sun at a low angle.

A devotee should not see anything as being separate from the Supreme Personality of Godhead, Krsna. Ether, fire, air, water, earth, the sun and other luminaries, all living beings, the directions, trees and other plants, the rivers and oceans -- whatever a devotee experiences he should consider to be an expansion of Krsna.
Thus seeing everything that exists within creation as the body of the Supreme Lord, Hari, the devotee should offer his sincere respects to the entire expansion of the Lord's body.

Rabindranath Tagore:

A mind all logic
is like a knife all blade.
The hand that uses it will bleed.